Coming Out Of Their Shells
The Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour was a live musical tour that occurred in 1990 starting on August 17th, it was endorsed and sponsored by Pizza Hut. The very first concert of the tour at New York City's Radio City Music Hall was broadcast live on Pay-Per-View. Take a fantastic journey with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as they transform themselves into one of America's premiere rock and roll bands who are live on stage with musical instruments, instead of martial arts weapons. The band features Donatello fingering a keyboard and performing back-up vocals, Leonardo plucking a one-string bass guitar and performing back-up vocals, Michaelangelo on guitar and performing back-up vocals, and Raphael multi-tasking on drums and tenor saxophone, and performing lead vocals, and the guest vocalists include Splinter, April O'Neil, and Shredder. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have decided to travel around the world to meet their fans face-to-face by singing songs they wrote such as "Coming Out Of Our Shells", "Pizza Power", "Skipping Stones", "Walk Straight", and "Tubin'". Though while the turtles are enjoying their time singing and dancing for the fans, Shredder decides to make an attempt to stop the turtles from making people happy. Shredder with the help of Baxter Stockman comes forth with his De-Harmonic Convergence Controller. Using this device they will steal all the music in the world, and it also weakens the turtles if they stand in front of it. Once Shredder arrives on stage with the de-harmonic convergence controller the turtles have to retreat and come up with a plan to save the day. About it The film opens with stylized shots of the roadies setting up the stage, and then, a voice tells us to welcome the turtles. The turtles are dressed in a blend of grunge and glam fashion, with jean jackets and studded leather chokers, and they take to the stage and give us the basic rundown of what they’re doing, letting us know that even though this music thing is new to them, they love it and are going to do their best. After this, there is a backstage segment of the turtles communing with Splinter. Splinter tells them that music can let them accomplish more than all the weapons in the world, and implores the turtles to practice with the same focus that turned them into skilled ninjas and take their music to all who will listen. They then launch into their first song, appropriately titled Pizza Power. Soon after the song begins, there are breakdancing pizza men wearing Secret of the Ooze-esque costumes. The turtles lead a chorus of hundreds of children in the chant of "pizza power", as they begin to chuck foam pizzas into the crowd. After the end of Pizza Power, Splinter rises from a platform near the front of the stage and does a zen spoken word piece that eventually leads into a synthy song called “Skipping Stones”, his performance is interspersed with oddly somber black and white footage of children running, a man checking his pocket watch, and New York City life. He belts out a soulful performance, while the turtles do tai chi behind him. Splinter’s song closes, suddenly, the turtles freeze in fear as a distorted voice fills the auditorium and Baxter Stockman runs out to the stage. The distorted voice it turns out is Shredder. Baxter has invented “the ultimate ninja weapon” and has frozen the turtles in time. As he and Baxter go back and forth, it’s revealed that Shredder hates music. And Krang has brought him a weapon from Dimension X, the De-Harmonic Convergence Controller which will allow him to suck all music out of the world. He assures the audience that this will destroy all that is good and decent in the world and leave them his mindless slaves. The stage is flooded with Foot Clan ninjas who are wearing military outfits that are vaguely reminiscent of the Foot costumes in the first film. Then Shredder dismisses the Foot soldiers and the tail end of Splinter’s song continues as the disoriented turtles and Splinter stumble around the stage. Leonardo brings Splinter his cane and they ask the audience if anyone knows what happened. The tiny children acknowledge their voices as they yell "It was Shredder!" April O’Neil emerges out of the crowd to reinforce the children’s point, as she replies with “He’s here now and he’s going to destroy the world”, but she is dismissed out of hand because Donatello has built a “Shred-Scan” into his synth in order to detect Shredder’s presence. Raphael and the gang explain they’re not afraid of Shredder because they have all of their friends are here to help them, then they ask if the audience wants to hear another song. Leonardo begins rallying the audience, preparing to launch into the next song. The turtles inform the audience that the only way to step to a bad guy with a twisted heart, or anyone else who wants you to do something you don’t want to do is to go straight at them and be yourself. This leads into Raphael's big song, “Walk Straight” which has dancing army men. The turtles then attempt to lead the crowd in a sing along, and there are a lot of spinning nunchaku in the crowd during this song. Then it’s time for some real rock and roll and Raphael plays a Chuck Berry style guitar riff. It’s time for “Tubin’”, a synth surf rock anthem about skateboarding interspersed with stock footage of surfers. There are also some alligators wearing hula skirts who emerge from the edge of the stage, and then are shortly thereafter joined by surfers wearing mining helmets and rollerblades while carrying a surfboard. Then Michelangelo starts rapping, and immediately after this song wraps up, the audience is treated to a bit of Turtle Lingo. April appears on the screen in a small corner box and implores the turtles to take the Shredder threat seriously. She is cut off, and then Michaelangelo starts rapping a different song called “Cowabunga”. This rap is definitely intended to have a Beastie Boys sound. The turtles freeze again, when Baxter comes out and sings “Cowabunga”, mockingly. Shredder appears in a green box on the side of the screen and says he has never liked rap music but has always enjoyed stopping it. He then calls the audience foolish for clapping along to the sound of silence. The two Foot ninjas come back out and rig the de-harmonic controller, so that when the turtles play their next song a vacuum will be formed and suck all music and joy out of the world. After this, Michaelangelo does a pretty passable Sinatra impression, then a very decent Elvis impression. April implores the turtles to look out as the stage begins to shake The Foot ninjas return and circle the turtles who begin talking mad smack at them. Even though they’ve transcended violence, Donatello and Raphael begin kicking their butts. But one of the ninjas is able to kidnap April, and Shredder makes his first on stage appearance to a screaming chorus of hundreds of frightened and angry children who are attempting to warn the turtles that Shredder is behind them. They do not notice Shredder, or his maniacal laughter. It isn’t until he directly addresses them and fireworks go off around him as he is lowered to the ground via the de-harmonic convergence controller. It also apparently has the ability to sap the turtle’s energy from them, and they are forced to retreat below the stage through a series of tubes. Shredder has a brilliant monologue about how the turtles are finally showing their true colors, yellow instead of green. As he insists they are cowards, the crowd jeers and boos. Shredder is a grade A heel. He reiterates that he’s going to suck all the music and joy from the world and he doesn’t need “snotty nosed little brats watching him”, and that they’re all “too small to be slaves” but that won’t stop him. Shredder menaces at April and lands a few jokes before banishing her from the stage and turning his attention to the audience. He announces that he’s locked all the doors and that no one can leave. The crowd goes absolutely insane, and they start chanting and screaming, and you can see them waving their nunchucks and their little light up swords, ready for a fight to protect their turtles. Then a reporter named Kip Reading who is interviewing children from the audience, is absolutely losing it because Shredder has shut down the show and kidnapped April. He asks the children how they should help them, as Kip finds a child who knows the way to the sewer. He implores the crowd of children to give him something to protect himself, as someone hands him a light up sword like the ones the children in the crowd have been waving. Kip is wandering the darkened under belly of the Radio City Music Hall and he finds himself lost. He begins to freak out more, and he begins attacking some wires he mistakes for a snake. Meanwhile, the turtles are attempting to come up with a strategy before they are interrupted by the intrepid reporter. They exchange information, and the general tone is one of hopelessness. The turtles tell Kip that Shredder is going to steal all music and Michaelangelo interjects that it will likely be all music with the possible exception of the Barry Manilow catalog. They also explain that if Shredder can’t be stopped he is going to enslave the children. Donatello is working on some sort of cloaking device to allow them to get in front of the machine without having their strength sapped. They convince Kip to go hunt for Shredder, and leave his camera with them. They will communicate via the camera, as the turtles implore the children to keep the faith and believe them when they say they’ll be back. There is a large gauge that is currently stuck in the middle “Really Bad”. The other options are Bad and Totally Uncool. The crowd is going wild, chanting "Turtles! Turtles! Turtles!" Instead of the turtles, Shredder storms the stage flanked by Foot ninjas who are tying up April. “It hurts so good,” Shredder informs the audience, and they continue to jeer. Various children are now screaming and shouting at Shredder, as he begins to single them out and ridicule them. The children begin chanting even louder, "Turtles! Turtles! Turtles!" while the Foot ninjas are armed with confetti cannons. As they boo him, he lets them know that he feels the same about them. Shredder explains how the de-harmonic convergence controller works, more or less and his sentences are punctuated by Foot ninjas firing off the confetti cannons. Shredder begins a song called “I Hate Music”, and he raps while Foot ninjas breakdance around him. “Does anyone want a New Kids On The Block album? I hear they’re breaking up!” Shredder shouts as he chucks albums into the garbage. April begins booing him as he explains that he has trapped all of the turtles’ music in an orb. He then shoots the orb with a laser and there’s an explosion. April spots Kip and begs him to come help her, as Shredder then electrocutes him. The turtles appear on screen, so Shredder sends Baxter to hunt for the turtles and goes and hunts for the turtles themselves. The other reporters are freaking out at this point, accusing the turtles of being cowards. April can’t stand for this, so she asks the audience if the turtles are cowards. Of course the children don’t think they’re cowards. She reveals that the turtles taught her a song that helps you not to be so afraid, then she sings it. Then, the turtles and Splinter begin rising from the stage. They hesitate to leave their tubes, deciding if just for a moment to enjoy April’s ballad, because if they don’t win, they may never hear music again. The song continues for a little longer, and April kills it. Shredder returns and he is straight up angry that April was singing. He’s about to get rid of all music and clarifies that this does in fact include Barry Manilow. “You’ll never get away with this you big ginsui clone!” April cries! Then he steals her voice using the de-harmonic convergence controller along with all music in the world. A reporter live on the streets of New York City, reports that confusion is flooding the city as the sound of all music has vanished, and there is a confused man shaking a guitar behind him. Meanwhile, a reporter in California reports that birds have stopped singing. Then, Chester Ashworth, a music industry executive/nerd, informs everyone that all music has left elevators and super markets. Baxter appears to remind Shredder that the turtles are still out there. Shredder reassures Baxter all will be well, and Baxter does his trademark squeal laugh. Then, the turtles erupt from the ground wearing shields created by Donatello to protect them from the machine. Donatello explains that he rearranged the molecular magnetic strip on the back of their American Express card and in unison the turtles turn to the audience and extol them to not leave home without it. Splinter shakes his head at that comment. They attempt to communicate with April, but she is now mute. The audience isn’t and they try to let them in on the secret. The turtles then play charades in an attempt to communicate, but it doesn’t go that well. Splinter immediately grasps the situation. The turtles grow even more despondent about the whole situation, and Splinter notices the gauge drop from Really Bad to Totally Uncool. The problem is that the turtles have lost sight of their true selves, and lost faith in the music. They then find a guitar and begin a song, since they are able to do so due to the shields they’re wearing protecting them from the machine’s music sapping ability. The song they launch into is a super jaunty and generic rock track called “No Treaties”, presumably indicating they will not be signing a peace treaty with Shredder after they have defeated him. The turtles begin to fight among themselves and the gauge dips even farther down. It seems the machine’s evil is penetrating their shields and that is making them fight themselves instead of Shredder. Then Michaelangelo begins singing a very soulful acapella R&B track called “Follow Your Heart”, and the crowd goes wild. Together we can defeat him!” cries Splinter. If they can bring the audiences voices together, they can overpower the machine and stop Shredder. The turtles begin teaching the audience the lyrics to the next song, “Count On Us”. “Remember brave ninjas, wait for our signal!” cry the turtles as they vanish from the stage. Shredder reappears and informs the children he’s going to steal their voices. The turtles are backstage, again in completely different costumes than what they were wearing 30 seconds ago. They taunt Shredder, and then give the signal. They begin singing, as does the audience. Shredder tries his hardest to stop them, but he is unable to do so. The turtles implore the audience to keep singing, and the machine begins going haywire. Shredder calls his Foot ninjas back to the stage and they uh, they breakdance fight. All the while, the turtles continue to lead the children in song, as Donatello plays bongos on Shredder's head. Shredder admits defeat, but he has an escape pod! He enters the pod, but they’ve unplugged the extension cord powering the teleportation pod and then somehow wire it into the de-harmonic convergence controller. This causes Shredder to be teleported into a dark shadow realm, which is Dimension X. “Let’s rock and roll!” shouts April, and the turtles start up playing a full band version of “Count On Us”. The camera pans to the audience throughout this number to show tons of incredibly happy and relieved children dancing in the aisles holding inflatable instruments and ninja weapons. The show comes to a close with a refrain of “Pizza Power”. Track listing "Coming Out Of Our Shells!" performed by Raphael - It is a hushed acoustic tune sung by Raphael describing the turtles' ascent into rock stardom, and he assures us that "Singin' in the sewers is a wonderful sound". "Sing About It" performed by Raphael - Raphael expresses the opinion that, "Whether you're happy or sad, through good times or bad, you just gotta "sing, sing, sing about it". "Tubin''" performed by Michaelangelo - Michaelangelo brings a Beach Boys-esque twist to surfing below the city streets in a swirling ocean of water. "Skipping Stones" performed by Master Splinter - Splinter gets his chance to shine and appears to deliver a weird, Creed-esque power ballad, but just ends up emitting a dreadful impersonation of Joe Elliott from Def Leppard. "Pizza Power" performed by all four turtles - This song is an energetic ditty about the fearsome foursome's obsession with the "flying saucer food delight of delicious discs of a flat round base of dough baked with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese with added meat or vegetables" first discovered by the turtles while they were "growing up in a glass bowl with chameleons, lizards, and tadpoles". "Walk Straight" performed by Raphael - It is a not-so-subtle anti-drug song, exclaiming that there's "No need to mutate. When they ask you if you're joinin' in, just keep on walkin' and never begin." "No Treaties" performed by Raphael - Raphael is rapping about in the case of the turtles finally making Shredder bow his knee in defeat, they'd refuse to allow him to walk away peacefully. "Cowabunga" performed by Michaelangelo - The song maintains the hip-hop influence felt in "Walk Straight", while Michaelangelo takes time to introduce his brothers and their roles within the band as an extension of the segment of the cartoon theme song describing the unique personality traits of each turtle. "April's Ballad" performed by April O'Neil - April is given an opportunity to exemplify her faith in the turtles through the magic of a great Madonna-like song about not being afraid, but she's no Cyndi Lauper. "Count On Us" performed by all four turtles - The final track is a companion piece to "April's Ballad", book-ending this exhausting trek as the guys engage in their final confrontation with Shredder and his minions, where the villains are launched through a portal into Dimension X. used in the tour but not included on the soundtrack: "I Hate Music" performed by The Shredder - Shredder has a sense of irony that he takes to a whole another level, because he is singing, although he hates music. "Follow Your Heart" performed by Michaelangelo - This song is motivational and came at the moment the turtles were down and didn't know how to defeat Shredder. The gallery of pictures Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour Pizza Hut advertisement.png Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour autographed poster.png Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour souvenir booklet.png Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour promotional poster.png Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour magazine cover.png Michaelangelo (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Raphael (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Donatello and Leonardo (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Donatello (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Leonardo (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Coming Out Of Their Shells poster 2.png Promotional cardboard standee.png Chester Ashworth.png New York reporter.png Kip's light up sword.png Concert group.png Hula dancing alligators.png Shredder's de-harmonic convergence controller.png April O'Neil and Shredder (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Shredder and Baxter Stockman (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Shredder (Coming Out Of Their Shells) 2.png Shredder (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png April O'Neil (Coming Out Of Their Shells) 4.png April O'Neil (Coming Out Of Their Shells) 3.png April O'Neil (Coming Out Of Their Shells) 2.png April O'Neil (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png Splinter (Coming Out Of Their Shells) 2.png Splinter (Coming Out Of Their Shells).png TMNT group 18.png TMNT group 17.png Donatello's dance moves.png Donatello (Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour) 2.png Trivia Pizza Hut's exclusive tie-in rights allowed them to sponsor the whole marketing campaign for the nationwide live shows to the tune of $20 million, and the senior vice president of marketing for Pizza Hut, David Novack, delivered a press statement on Pizza Hut's behalf: 'We're just absolutely thrilled to get the world's most famous pizza eaters to hook up with the number one pizza company in the world. Pizza Hut will launch the most aggressive promotion ever done in the record industry to support the turtles' new music, which I'm sure all of America will love.' As a result of this, over 2 million Coming Out Of Their Shells starter packs were sold with the purchase of a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. The tour's very first show at Radio City Music Hall was broadcast live on Pay-Per-View. The Pay-Per-View showing contained a pre-show made to look like Channel Six were the ones broadcasting the concert live, with reporter Kip Reading giving some backstory on why the turtles started a band in a home movie of Raphael and Michaelangelo writing and practicing the studio version of "Coming Out Of Our Shells" in the sewer, where Mike is shown writing the lyrics on a Pizza Hut box before Raph sings the song. Kip only appeared in-person during the Pay-Per-View broadcast because he was to entertain the live audience before the show and during the intermission. On the tour, Kip was only shown twice using pre-recorded footage of him in the Channel Six newsroom; once to introduce April before her pre-show audience warm-up, and later in the second act when Shredder stole his voice. During the pre-show, when April is trying to get the turtles out of their dressing room for an interview, Michaelangelo says in a woman's falsetto, "Oh April, we're not dressed yet. Ha ha!" The colors of Mike and Raph's bandannas made it difficult for some people to tell them apart but luckily they wear big black armbands with their initials on them during the show. The tour is generally lambasted for its terrible costumes. There are two sets of turtle costumes: one set has black spot splatters all over the turtles' stage costumes, like somebody sprayed ink all over their heads, these are the ones without the shells that were used for the show, while the other set are smooth green organic costumes that lean awkwardly in the behind-the-scenes footage. Sherie Rene Scott portrays the bargain basement version of newscaster April O'Neil during the Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour, the VHS of the concert, and The Making Of The Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour. Splinter is a 6-foot tall giant mutant man-rat has the large deformed head of a Chuck E. Cheese animatronic on the small body of a human being, while his hands are currently being represented by garden rakes covered up with colored saran wrap. Shredder wears a cartoonish helmet that is a metal trash can with a giant hole cut out, and his mouthpiece is actually below his mouth, making it quite visible, as the audience might not understand him talking through a closed mouthpiece. There were some international tour stops like France and Argentina, but video and audio have not resurfaced. Some of the scenes, dialogue, music tracks, and intermissions only appeared on the live Pay-Per-View broadcast, but were edited out of the VHS release. The Coming Out Of Their Shells starter pack included a cut-out mask, a poster, a comic book which actually set up the backstory of the show, an official tour souvenir program that told you what locations the show would be playing at, and a soundtrack on cassette tape that got you pumped to hear the music live. In the show's comic book backstory, the turtles thought they’d defeated Shredder for good and are charged by Splinter to spread joy and merriment across the world by telling them it is time to make their debut to the outside world via world tour and commercial sponsors. Category:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters Category:Stage shows